1-Up!
Game Page: http://speeddemosarchive.com/KirbySuperStar.html
Kirby Super Star Ultra (Any %) (Single Segment) [Arena Mode]
Kirby Super Star Ultra (Any %) (Single Segment) [Helper to Hero Mode, Character: Plasma Whisp]
Kirby Super Star Ultra (Any %) (Single Segment) [Helper to Hero Mode, Character: Poppy Bro. Jr.]
Kirby Super Star Ultra (Any %) (Single Segment) [True Arena Mode]
Kirby Super Star Ultra (Any %) (Single Segment) [Helper to Hero Mode, Character: Birdon]
Kirby Super Star Ultra (Any %) (Single Segment) [Helper to Hero Mode, Character: Bonkers]
Verifier Responses
Decision: Reject all
Reason: None of these runs show the level of planning or execution that we expect.
This run will be available for a month. After that these links will no longer work.
http://queue.speeddemosarchive.com/queue/verificationfiles/487
http://queue.speeddemosarchive.com/queue/verificationfiles/488
http://queue.speeddemosarchive.com/queue/verificationfiles/494
http://queue.speeddemosarchive.com/queue/verificationfiles/495
http://queue.speeddemosarchive.com/queue/verificationfiles/489
http://queue.speeddemosarchive.com/queue/verificationfiles/493
Kirby Super Star Ultra (Any %) (Single Segment) [Arena Mode]
Kirby Super Star Ultra (Any %) (Single Segment) [Helper to Hero Mode, Character: Plasma Whisp]
Kirby Super Star Ultra (Any %) (Single Segment) [Helper to Hero Mode, Character: Poppy Bro. Jr.]
Kirby Super Star Ultra (Any %) (Single Segment) [True Arena Mode]
Kirby Super Star Ultra (Any %) (Single Segment) [Helper to Hero Mode, Character: Birdon]
Kirby Super Star Ultra (Any %) (Single Segment) [Helper to Hero Mode, Character: Bonkers]
Verifier Responses
Quote:
This verification is going to be really long and detailed, coming from someone who used to do casual IL's for basically every part of KSSU, so please bear with me.
Bonkers
A/V is fine. No cheating. In-game time is 4:11.02
Whispy Woods - Faster strat is to do an aerial swing, then two hammer flips, rather than the opposite
Mid-Boss All Stars 1 - Should finish bugzy with a reverse hammer flip so its body ends up closer
Kracko - Missed two swings; runner did not take advantage of being able to hop in the air without puffing, with bonkers. Runner should hover by Kracko and time each hammer hit, to finish off kracko more quickly. Or runner can use well-timed hammer flips, which is faster but riskier (and judging from how the runner tried that with Kracko in Arena... I doubt the runner should go for it)
King DDD - Unlucky with DDD faceplanting on him, but otherwise fine.
Dyna Blade - IIRC You can hit Dyna Blade with hammer flips, even if it doesn't seem like it. Regardless, the runner backed off with each jump + hammer swing, when you can easily hit it with two swings per full jump. Furthermore he did not start the fight at the ceiling, to land a few hits as early as possible. Bad strat all around.
Fatty Whale - Good initial pattern, but the runner gets hit. Regardless, it didn't cost too much time; getting a good pattern and also finishing off fatty whale before his second attack is very good.
Chameleo Arm - The runner is not aware of the strat to take hits intentionally to cancel the lag of hammer flips, losing a little time. From what I can tell though, the execution was fine; strat was just bad.
Mid-boss all stars 2 - Took a hit against jukid by moving too close. Otherwise fine.
Twin Woods - Runner could space the hammer flips a bit farther, to save some frames of travel time, but honestly that's just being nitpicky. This fight is normally very easy, but the runner got unlucky with the gordo drops (but you can still dodge the apple without wasting time simply by spacing your hammer flip a bit farther away)
Heavy Lobster - The runner started with a hammer dash attack in the arena, yet uses a hammer flip for this minigame; not sure why, since the dash attack is much easier, more consistent, barely slower, and you don't get hit, meaning you can get ready to attack it more quickly afterwards. Got lucky with heavy lobster's pattern afterwards, allowing the runner to slam 3 hammer flips in a row.
Computer Virus - ORKO Magician. 2RKO Evil Knight. 2RKO Great Dragon. Got pretty much perfect luck. He took a hit against the knight, which looks sloppy and bad, but it doesn't lose time.
Metaknight - Runner decided to chance a second hammer flip and it paid off, giving a very good and fast metaknight fight.
Wham Bam Rock - no 2-round. Not even a 3 round. Come on.
Wham Bam Jewel - Could've finished it after its third attack, but didn't lose much time regardless. Fine.
Execution-wise the run is all right. The only major areas where execution fails a lot are Kracko and Dyna Blade. The runner got almost perfect luck on every boss fight. However, strategies are very bad/old and the runner easily loses out on at least 30 seconds just from using bad strats (especially Kracko).
The runner should watch anwonu's Bonkers run (3:37.80) here:
Furthermore, I did a run of Bonkers just now and got 4:36.15 without resetting. This is with horrible luck at computer virus (knight and dragon went first, and they both defended, adding 3 extra rounds total), bad fatty whale luck, and gordo drop on twin woods, which is easily at least 30 seconds just from luck. And I played very sloppily. And the three best times below from my cartridge are from at least 4 years ago, and I have a ton of improve upon as well, as shown in anwonu's video.
Outdated strategies, much better times available, despite decent execution, makes this a
REJECT
Birdon
I'm honestly not very experienced with using Birdon in helper to hero, but I will say that the video quality seems fine and that there is no cheating detected. The in-game timer turned out to be 07:02.47
I can't make detailed comments about birdon, but execution seemed to be sloppy due to missed dive bombs. Furthermore, anwonu has a time of 6:25.44, and there are two other times even faster than that by practically 20-30 seconds. Though I'm not familiar with birdon strats, I know enough about the execution to say that it's too sloppy. I'm not necessarily expecting the runner to get the best time possible, but I don't expect a run of Birdon to go on SDA that is over 40 seconds slower, in a 7 minutes run.
REJECT.
Poppy Bro. Jr
Quality is fine. In-game time turns out to be 8:19.17
Right off the bat, I see him tossing bombs rather than using bomb drops. Dropping bombs have much better damage output and DPS than tossing bombs. Poppy Bros Jr has strats where by hovering above the boss and constantly mashing down+b, you can constantly drop bombs on enemies.
The runner tosses bombs for almost every boss fight, and just based off of this alone, I will have to reject because he does not use the best strats (I have sub-8 minute IIRC with poppy bros jr). this is strange because the runner proceeds to use the bomb dropping strat on part of fatty whale; I'm not sure how the runner didn't notice that dropping bombs is better than tossing bombs.
Furthermore, even assuming his strats were ideal, he takes many hits and misses many bomb tosses. Also, he wastes many bomb tosses because he is clearly unfamiliar with how long invincibility frames last for each boss/miniboss; the runner is clearly just mashing B when usually, half of the bomb tosses are doing nothing due to invincibility frames. The runner needs to time bomb tosses to hit the bosses as early as possible, AFTER their invincibility frames end, to minimize wasted bomb tosses. This is most obvious with both mid-boss all star fights, as half of his bombs do nothing due to him spamming B too fast, rather than rhythmically timing each bomb toss.
There are times within low 7 minutes; anwonu has a time of 7:11.22, over a minute faster, and his time isn't even the best time.
REJECT
Plasma Wisp
A/V is fine.
Plasma wisp strats are pretty standard. In-game time says 7:18.00
Basically sit there, dodge, spam the plasma waves. Overall he could spam the attacks faster. I'll list out mistakes he makes:
-Against bonkers and bugzy, it's clear that the runner isn't familiar with their patterns, as he wasted a shot by shooting it when they jumped. The runner also took damage here.
-Took a costly hit against DDD
-Runner should've been ready to defend against dynablade's head attack, but he wasn't, and lost time taking a hit.
-Missed over two shots against Chameleo Arm. Horrible fight.
-For some reason, the runner charges attacks for finishing off the dead bodies of mid-boss all stars 2 when it's faster to spam small arrows. He also got tossed by jukid.
-Against twin woods, he should be spamming spark waves while against one of the trees, so the charge barriers does light damage against one tree while the runner attacks the other tree. Sub-optimal.
-Against computer virus, the runner should've taken the time to make sure each attack was a fully charged blast (case in point: evil knight, second shot and fourth shot, major time lost), as computer virus stops being vulnerable partly based off of how much damage it has taken; you have plenty of time to charge two fully charged waves. This cost him an entire round against Evil Knight.
-Metaknight was good
-Runner can easily squeeze in two shots for each time wham bam rock/jewel tries to grab the runner. Slow.
The strats aren't quite as sub-optimal as the strats for all the other sub-games submitted by the runner. However, the execution suffers more as the runner can easily spam plasma wisp more often; it shows that the runner didn't finish too many attempts with plasma wisp (meaning he didn't push himself enough) because he only has times of 7:34:79 and 12:05:00 after this run judging from his scoreboard of plasma wisp. Furthermore, I have times an entire minute faster than his run from a few years ago (my best times with plasma wisp are 06:12.50 and 06:13.45) and if i recall correctly, my runs were very bad. Anwonu has a time of 6:02.47, faster than mine. If there's an entire minute of execution that the runner is missing out on, compared to me (where my runs are casual), then I have to reject this.
REJECT
Arena Mode
Seems like there's a very minor audio lag behind the video, but it might just be me. Video quality itself is fine. Runner got 6:03:87 in-game time.
First of all, I don't see why the runner starts with plasma. Plasma is relatively weak, and he should start with hammer. Second, I have a sloppy run on youtube which gets 5:19 in-game here (and it doesn't even use all the best strats; anwonu would probably know better strats):
There is an even better time by anwonu here: http://www.twitch.tv/anwonu/c/1505041 which gets 5:16.32
A run on SDA should aim to at least beat my video at minimum.
Main Cannon - There is a hammer strat to finish the main cannon in less than 5 seconds. Very slow
Midboss All stars 2 - missed a hammer flip. I would've reset here since it was so early in the run anyways. He should also use the dash attack as the final blow on the last two mid-bosses so he'd be in better position to finish off their bodies more quickly.
Nova Nucleus - Strat is ok, but the execution was a bit sloppy. The runner didn't seem to know that you can hit each part with more than one star per shot by shooting at point-blank range, so he lost a few seconds here.
Metaknight - Good first hammer flip. But the rest was sloppy. It's evident that the runner isn't too familiar with MK's patterns, and even if you want a consistent strat, doing hammer dashes is better than just normal hammer swings.
Fatty Whale - OK. Could've squeezed in another hammer flip on the second bounce, but whatever.
Whispy Woods - Slow. Ideal strat is to hit it with an aerial swing on the way down, then do two hammer flips. It's very minor, but it's also incredibly easy; there is no reason to not do it.
Wham Bam Rock - Want to hammer dash into the fight trigger to save a tiny bit of time. Missed the two-round fight.
King Dedede - Never seen the hammer dash strat used here. Seemed pretty good.
Dyna Blade - Stayed on the ground when he can easily squeeze in two aerial swings before the boss lands. Also he dropped hammer; this fight was incredibly sloppy.
Computer Virus - Good Wizard fight, good evil knight, good dragon. Perfect luck pretty much. It's possible to 1-turn the evil knight, but it's incredibly hard to get the flame hit as well as the hammer flip 80 damage (I think it's pixel perfect?) so it's perfectly understandable that the runner didn't go for it.
Twin Woods - Standard. He grabbed a maximum tomato between this fight and the next, even though he wasn't anywhere near death; doesn't count towards the in-game timer, so I'm not sure if it should count against the runner or not.
Mid-Boss All Stars 1 - Want to reverse hammer flip bugzy from below so his body lands closer. Otherwise fine.
Chameleo Arm - Again, want to hammer dash into the fight trigger to save a bit of time. No damage cancels made this fight a few seconds slower than it should've been.
Heavy Lobster - Perfect
Kracko - Why did the runner continue after this disaster? The runner lost over 20 seconds to go for risky hammer flips and missed almost every single one. If the hammer flip strat isn't consistent for the runner, I recommend following my strat with the aerial swings, which is easier but very consistent too.
Reactor - The runner didn't destroy the laser guns after they fired their lasers; IIRC it makes the boss do its next attack sooner, so that's a little bit of time lost. Good luck in this fight though.
Waddle Dee - lol
Lololo & Lalala - Standard. The runner made a mistake in doing a dash aerial swing, meaning the first hit on the blue guy did less damage; if he did a normal aerial swing instead, then the last hammer flip would've finished it, saving a second
Marx - Got the quick kill for Marx. Excellent fight.
Overall, execution was OK, and the runner basically got perfect luck. However, certain fights (Kracko, Dyna Blade) had such huge mistakes that lost over a half minute, and considering this is a run that's only about 6 minutes long, that is absolutely unacceptable. Furthermore, it's clear that the runner did not look for help from other runners of the game, as most of the runner's strats are old and/or not ideal.
REJECT
True Arena Mode
Video & Audio quality seems fine. In-game time is 4:30.07, which should be used.
Lololo & lalala - Wow, perfect patterns here. With that pattern, he could've two rounded, but it's luck-based. He should've 3-rounded at minimum though.
Kracko Jr. - You can hammer flip him right when he dips down, then hit a second one as he charges across. The runner didn't do the first hammer flip, which is a few seconds lost.
True Mid-boss All Stars - Accidentally did a dashed aerial hammer swings on the body of the clock boss, wasting time. Also was too close to the fire lion, so lost another few seconds. Otherwise fine.
Kabula - Very slow. Runner doesn't seem to know that you can hit it with more than one star per shot by fighting it up close.
Kracko - Should've defended instead of running. Could be 2 seconds faster.
Whispy Woods - Standard
King Dedede - Most epic theme ever. Anyways, he missed the third hammer flip, which is huge, and then he got hit at the end of DDD's huge spin attack, which is also a ton of time lost. Following that, he did a hammer flip that was too risky and got him hit a third time. Probably the worst fight of the entire run, losing over 10 seconds from mis-spacing hammer flips and being sloppy.
Wham Bam Jewel - You can hit it with a few extra aerial hammer swings per round, but it's not really much faster. This was fine.
Galacta Knight - Incredibly lucky first phase, with some great hammer flips. However, when galacta knight is hovering in the middle, the runner only hits it once per jump when you can easily time hitting it with hammer swings per jump, losing seconds there . Though the amazing luck more than makes up for that, I can't help but feel that it could've saved at least another 4-5 seconds if the runner knew about that.
Marx Soul - Runner got hit by not defending and/or playing a bit too risky with the hammer flips. Decent fight overall though.
I don't have a video of it, but my best record for true arena is around 3:55.22 in-game time, and I honestly don't think it uses the most up-to-date strats either. I even just did a run right now without having touched true arena more than twice in the past year, and I got a better time than this, even with bad luck. There are three other known times on cyberscore that are sub 4 minute, all of which are faster than mine (but still above 3:50). The runner should aim to at least get sub-4 minute, which isn't an unrealistic goal at all.
In terms of execution, the run itself isn't bad. However, there are many strats that the runner was not aware of that would shave off several seconds, and more if he didn't have such a bad King Dedede fight. I encourage the runner to get in touch with me/anwonu/other runners about strategies for the sub-games, instead of doing runs completely alone.
REJECT
TL;DR
A/V is fine in every run, and there is no cheating.
Every video is a reject (except Birdon, mainly because I don't know Birdon strats at all) primarily because of bad/outdated strats; the lack of optimal strats show as when I did a run for all of these categories just now (besides birdon), I got close and/or better times with sloppy execution.
The runner's execution was rather sloppy in many areas, by taking many unnecessary hits and missing several attacks (particularly birdon and poppy bros jr). This shouldn't necessarily be a factor in whether this gets accept/rejected, but at the same time, (I could be wrong, in case the runner has multiple cartridges/files) it's somewhat clear that the runner didn't finish that many runs and didn't push himself, judging from his list of high scores for each sub-game. With practicing updated strats, grinding out several more runs, and most importantly, contacting the KSSU speedrunning community, I encourage the runner to try again with better strats and better execution.
To make this clear: I personally (and I think the SDA community as a whole) am not looking for a world record or anything like that; after all, a lot of the top scores for these sub-games don't even have videos. But I don't think it is acceptable for sub-games to be put on SDA when there is clearly at least a half minute improvement in just about every video, when each video is only about 5-7 minutes long each.
Bonkers
A/V is fine. No cheating. In-game time is 4:11.02
Whispy Woods - Faster strat is to do an aerial swing, then two hammer flips, rather than the opposite
Mid-Boss All Stars 1 - Should finish bugzy with a reverse hammer flip so its body ends up closer
Kracko - Missed two swings; runner did not take advantage of being able to hop in the air without puffing, with bonkers. Runner should hover by Kracko and time each hammer hit, to finish off kracko more quickly. Or runner can use well-timed hammer flips, which is faster but riskier (and judging from how the runner tried that with Kracko in Arena... I doubt the runner should go for it)
King DDD - Unlucky with DDD faceplanting on him, but otherwise fine.
Dyna Blade - IIRC You can hit Dyna Blade with hammer flips, even if it doesn't seem like it. Regardless, the runner backed off with each jump + hammer swing, when you can easily hit it with two swings per full jump. Furthermore he did not start the fight at the ceiling, to land a few hits as early as possible. Bad strat all around.
Fatty Whale - Good initial pattern, but the runner gets hit. Regardless, it didn't cost too much time; getting a good pattern and also finishing off fatty whale before his second attack is very good.
Chameleo Arm - The runner is not aware of the strat to take hits intentionally to cancel the lag of hammer flips, losing a little time. From what I can tell though, the execution was fine; strat was just bad.
Mid-boss all stars 2 - Took a hit against jukid by moving too close. Otherwise fine.
Twin Woods - Runner could space the hammer flips a bit farther, to save some frames of travel time, but honestly that's just being nitpicky. This fight is normally very easy, but the runner got unlucky with the gordo drops (but you can still dodge the apple without wasting time simply by spacing your hammer flip a bit farther away)
Heavy Lobster - The runner started with a hammer dash attack in the arena, yet uses a hammer flip for this minigame; not sure why, since the dash attack is much easier, more consistent, barely slower, and you don't get hit, meaning you can get ready to attack it more quickly afterwards. Got lucky with heavy lobster's pattern afterwards, allowing the runner to slam 3 hammer flips in a row.
Computer Virus - ORKO Magician. 2RKO Evil Knight. 2RKO Great Dragon. Got pretty much perfect luck. He took a hit against the knight, which looks sloppy and bad, but it doesn't lose time.
Metaknight - Runner decided to chance a second hammer flip and it paid off, giving a very good and fast metaknight fight.
Wham Bam Rock - no 2-round. Not even a 3 round. Come on.
Wham Bam Jewel - Could've finished it after its third attack, but didn't lose much time regardless. Fine.
Execution-wise the run is all right. The only major areas where execution fails a lot are Kracko and Dyna Blade. The runner got almost perfect luck on every boss fight. However, strategies are very bad/old and the runner easily loses out on at least 30 seconds just from using bad strats (especially Kracko).
The runner should watch anwonu's Bonkers run (3:37.80) here:
Furthermore, I did a run of Bonkers just now and got 4:36.15 without resetting. This is with horrible luck at computer virus (knight and dragon went first, and they both defended, adding 3 extra rounds total), bad fatty whale luck, and gordo drop on twin woods, which is easily at least 30 seconds just from luck. And I played very sloppily. And the three best times below from my cartridge are from at least 4 years ago, and I have a ton of improve upon as well, as shown in anwonu's video.
Outdated strategies, much better times available, despite decent execution, makes this a
REJECT
Birdon
I'm honestly not very experienced with using Birdon in helper to hero, but I will say that the video quality seems fine and that there is no cheating detected. The in-game timer turned out to be 07:02.47
I can't make detailed comments about birdon, but execution seemed to be sloppy due to missed dive bombs. Furthermore, anwonu has a time of 6:25.44, and there are two other times even faster than that by practically 20-30 seconds. Though I'm not familiar with birdon strats, I know enough about the execution to say that it's too sloppy. I'm not necessarily expecting the runner to get the best time possible, but I don't expect a run of Birdon to go on SDA that is over 40 seconds slower, in a 7 minutes run.
REJECT.
Poppy Bro. Jr
Quality is fine. In-game time turns out to be 8:19.17
Right off the bat, I see him tossing bombs rather than using bomb drops. Dropping bombs have much better damage output and DPS than tossing bombs. Poppy Bros Jr has strats where by hovering above the boss and constantly mashing down+b, you can constantly drop bombs on enemies.
The runner tosses bombs for almost every boss fight, and just based off of this alone, I will have to reject because he does not use the best strats (I have sub-8 minute IIRC with poppy bros jr). this is strange because the runner proceeds to use the bomb dropping strat on part of fatty whale; I'm not sure how the runner didn't notice that dropping bombs is better than tossing bombs.
Furthermore, even assuming his strats were ideal, he takes many hits and misses many bomb tosses. Also, he wastes many bomb tosses because he is clearly unfamiliar with how long invincibility frames last for each boss/miniboss; the runner is clearly just mashing B when usually, half of the bomb tosses are doing nothing due to invincibility frames. The runner needs to time bomb tosses to hit the bosses as early as possible, AFTER their invincibility frames end, to minimize wasted bomb tosses. This is most obvious with both mid-boss all star fights, as half of his bombs do nothing due to him spamming B too fast, rather than rhythmically timing each bomb toss.
There are times within low 7 minutes; anwonu has a time of 7:11.22, over a minute faster, and his time isn't even the best time.
REJECT
Plasma Wisp
A/V is fine.
Plasma wisp strats are pretty standard. In-game time says 7:18.00
Basically sit there, dodge, spam the plasma waves. Overall he could spam the attacks faster. I'll list out mistakes he makes:
-Against bonkers and bugzy, it's clear that the runner isn't familiar with their patterns, as he wasted a shot by shooting it when they jumped. The runner also took damage here.
-Took a costly hit against DDD
-Runner should've been ready to defend against dynablade's head attack, but he wasn't, and lost time taking a hit.
-Missed over two shots against Chameleo Arm. Horrible fight.
-For some reason, the runner charges attacks for finishing off the dead bodies of mid-boss all stars 2 when it's faster to spam small arrows. He also got tossed by jukid.
-Against twin woods, he should be spamming spark waves while against one of the trees, so the charge barriers does light damage against one tree while the runner attacks the other tree. Sub-optimal.
-Against computer virus, the runner should've taken the time to make sure each attack was a fully charged blast (case in point: evil knight, second shot and fourth shot, major time lost), as computer virus stops being vulnerable partly based off of how much damage it has taken; you have plenty of time to charge two fully charged waves. This cost him an entire round against Evil Knight.
-Metaknight was good
-Runner can easily squeeze in two shots for each time wham bam rock/jewel tries to grab the runner. Slow.
The strats aren't quite as sub-optimal as the strats for all the other sub-games submitted by the runner. However, the execution suffers more as the runner can easily spam plasma wisp more often; it shows that the runner didn't finish too many attempts with plasma wisp (meaning he didn't push himself enough) because he only has times of 7:34:79 and 12:05:00 after this run judging from his scoreboard of plasma wisp. Furthermore, I have times an entire minute faster than his run from a few years ago (my best times with plasma wisp are 06:12.50 and 06:13.45) and if i recall correctly, my runs were very bad. Anwonu has a time of 6:02.47, faster than mine. If there's an entire minute of execution that the runner is missing out on, compared to me (where my runs are casual), then I have to reject this.
REJECT
Arena Mode
Seems like there's a very minor audio lag behind the video, but it might just be me. Video quality itself is fine. Runner got 6:03:87 in-game time.
First of all, I don't see why the runner starts with plasma. Plasma is relatively weak, and he should start with hammer. Second, I have a sloppy run on youtube which gets 5:19 in-game here (and it doesn't even use all the best strats; anwonu would probably know better strats):
There is an even better time by anwonu here: http://www.twitch.tv/anwonu/c/1505041 which gets 5:16.32
A run on SDA should aim to at least beat my video at minimum.
Main Cannon - There is a hammer strat to finish the main cannon in less than 5 seconds. Very slow
Midboss All stars 2 - missed a hammer flip. I would've reset here since it was so early in the run anyways. He should also use the dash attack as the final blow on the last two mid-bosses so he'd be in better position to finish off their bodies more quickly.
Nova Nucleus - Strat is ok, but the execution was a bit sloppy. The runner didn't seem to know that you can hit each part with more than one star per shot by shooting at point-blank range, so he lost a few seconds here.
Metaknight - Good first hammer flip. But the rest was sloppy. It's evident that the runner isn't too familiar with MK's patterns, and even if you want a consistent strat, doing hammer dashes is better than just normal hammer swings.
Fatty Whale - OK. Could've squeezed in another hammer flip on the second bounce, but whatever.
Whispy Woods - Slow. Ideal strat is to hit it with an aerial swing on the way down, then do two hammer flips. It's very minor, but it's also incredibly easy; there is no reason to not do it.
Wham Bam Rock - Want to hammer dash into the fight trigger to save a tiny bit of time. Missed the two-round fight.
King Dedede - Never seen the hammer dash strat used here. Seemed pretty good.
Dyna Blade - Stayed on the ground when he can easily squeeze in two aerial swings before the boss lands. Also he dropped hammer; this fight was incredibly sloppy.
Computer Virus - Good Wizard fight, good evil knight, good dragon. Perfect luck pretty much. It's possible to 1-turn the evil knight, but it's incredibly hard to get the flame hit as well as the hammer flip 80 damage (I think it's pixel perfect?) so it's perfectly understandable that the runner didn't go for it.
Twin Woods - Standard. He grabbed a maximum tomato between this fight and the next, even though he wasn't anywhere near death; doesn't count towards the in-game timer, so I'm not sure if it should count against the runner or not.
Mid-Boss All Stars 1 - Want to reverse hammer flip bugzy from below so his body lands closer. Otherwise fine.
Chameleo Arm - Again, want to hammer dash into the fight trigger to save a bit of time. No damage cancels made this fight a few seconds slower than it should've been.
Heavy Lobster - Perfect
Kracko - Why did the runner continue after this disaster? The runner lost over 20 seconds to go for risky hammer flips and missed almost every single one. If the hammer flip strat isn't consistent for the runner, I recommend following my strat with the aerial swings, which is easier but very consistent too.
Reactor - The runner didn't destroy the laser guns after they fired their lasers; IIRC it makes the boss do its next attack sooner, so that's a little bit of time lost. Good luck in this fight though.
Waddle Dee - lol
Lololo & Lalala - Standard. The runner made a mistake in doing a dash aerial swing, meaning the first hit on the blue guy did less damage; if he did a normal aerial swing instead, then the last hammer flip would've finished it, saving a second
Marx - Got the quick kill for Marx. Excellent fight.
Overall, execution was OK, and the runner basically got perfect luck. However, certain fights (Kracko, Dyna Blade) had such huge mistakes that lost over a half minute, and considering this is a run that's only about 6 minutes long, that is absolutely unacceptable. Furthermore, it's clear that the runner did not look for help from other runners of the game, as most of the runner's strats are old and/or not ideal.
REJECT
True Arena Mode
Video & Audio quality seems fine. In-game time is 4:30.07, which should be used.
Lololo & lalala - Wow, perfect patterns here. With that pattern, he could've two rounded, but it's luck-based. He should've 3-rounded at minimum though.
Kracko Jr. - You can hammer flip him right when he dips down, then hit a second one as he charges across. The runner didn't do the first hammer flip, which is a few seconds lost.
True Mid-boss All Stars - Accidentally did a dashed aerial hammer swings on the body of the clock boss, wasting time. Also was too close to the fire lion, so lost another few seconds. Otherwise fine.
Kabula - Very slow. Runner doesn't seem to know that you can hit it with more than one star per shot by fighting it up close.
Kracko - Should've defended instead of running. Could be 2 seconds faster.
Whispy Woods - Standard
King Dedede - Most epic theme ever. Anyways, he missed the third hammer flip, which is huge, and then he got hit at the end of DDD's huge spin attack, which is also a ton of time lost. Following that, he did a hammer flip that was too risky and got him hit a third time. Probably the worst fight of the entire run, losing over 10 seconds from mis-spacing hammer flips and being sloppy.
Wham Bam Jewel - You can hit it with a few extra aerial hammer swings per round, but it's not really much faster. This was fine.
Galacta Knight - Incredibly lucky first phase, with some great hammer flips. However, when galacta knight is hovering in the middle, the runner only hits it once per jump when you can easily time hitting it with hammer swings per jump, losing seconds there . Though the amazing luck more than makes up for that, I can't help but feel that it could've saved at least another 4-5 seconds if the runner knew about that.
Marx Soul - Runner got hit by not defending and/or playing a bit too risky with the hammer flips. Decent fight overall though.
I don't have a video of it, but my best record for true arena is around 3:55.22 in-game time, and I honestly don't think it uses the most up-to-date strats either. I even just did a run right now without having touched true arena more than twice in the past year, and I got a better time than this, even with bad luck. There are three other known times on cyberscore that are sub 4 minute, all of which are faster than mine (but still above 3:50). The runner should aim to at least get sub-4 minute, which isn't an unrealistic goal at all.
In terms of execution, the run itself isn't bad. However, there are many strats that the runner was not aware of that would shave off several seconds, and more if he didn't have such a bad King Dedede fight. I encourage the runner to get in touch with me/anwonu/other runners about strategies for the sub-games, instead of doing runs completely alone.
REJECT
TL;DR
A/V is fine in every run, and there is no cheating.
Every video is a reject (except Birdon, mainly because I don't know Birdon strats at all) primarily because of bad/outdated strats; the lack of optimal strats show as when I did a run for all of these categories just now (besides birdon), I got close and/or better times with sloppy execution.
The runner's execution was rather sloppy in many areas, by taking many unnecessary hits and missing several attacks (particularly birdon and poppy bros jr). This shouldn't necessarily be a factor in whether this gets accept/rejected, but at the same time, (I could be wrong, in case the runner has multiple cartridges/files) it's somewhat clear that the runner didn't finish that many runs and didn't push himself, judging from his list of high scores for each sub-game. With practicing updated strats, grinding out several more runs, and most importantly, contacting the KSSU speedrunning community, I encourage the runner to try again with better strats and better execution.
To make this clear: I personally (and I think the SDA community as a whole) am not looking for a world record or anything like that; after all, a lot of the top scores for these sub-games don't even have videos. But I don't think it is acceptable for sub-games to be put on SDA when there is clearly at least a half minute improvement in just about every video, when each video is only about 5-7 minutes long each.
Quote:
I'm not going to be nearly as detailed on these as the last verifier.
Bonkers
A/V fine, no cheating. In-game time is 4:11:02. This one seems well done, although there did seem to be some unnecessary damage being taken. I'd give this one an accept.
Birdon
A/V fine, no cheating. In-game time is 7:02:47. There were a lot of missed hits, as if the runner didn't know the patterns of the bosses, and some unnecessary damage being taken. Some of the strats seemed sub-optimal as well. I'm giving this one a reject.
Poppy Bro Jr.
A/V is fine, no cheating. In-game time is 8:19:17. For me, the missed hits, unnecessary damage, sub-optimal strats, and button mashing are just too much. Hell, they use the faster bomb-dropping strat on the second two bosses in the Computer Virus battle yet used bomb throwing for the rest of the battles (excluding that small part of Fatty Whale). There are seemed to be instances where it seemed like the runner was unfamiliar with the boss patterns. Plus combined with the fact that the previous verifier has a better time for this Helper to Hero is going to have me reject this one as well.
Plasma Wisp
A/V is fine, no cheating. In-game time is 7:18:00. Again, there are missed hits and unnecessary damage being taken. It also seemed like the runner did not charge Plasma Wisp's attacks at times when they were able to. Even with some good strats being used, there was a lot of really bad fights in this. I'm going to give this one a reject.
The Arena
A/V is fine (didn't notice any lag), no cheating. In-game time is 6:03:87 Again, there are missed hits and unnecessary damage being taken. Plus sub-optimal strats. Giving this one a reject as well.
The True Arena
A/V is fine, no cheating. In-game time is 4:30:07. Again, with the missed hits and unnecessary damage taken. Some of those being very costly mistakes. And if the previous verifier can get a better time, then I'm going to give this one a reject as well.
Bonkers
A/V fine, no cheating. In-game time is 4:11:02. This one seems well done, although there did seem to be some unnecessary damage being taken. I'd give this one an accept.
Birdon
A/V fine, no cheating. In-game time is 7:02:47. There were a lot of missed hits, as if the runner didn't know the patterns of the bosses, and some unnecessary damage being taken. Some of the strats seemed sub-optimal as well. I'm giving this one a reject.
Poppy Bro Jr.
A/V is fine, no cheating. In-game time is 8:19:17. For me, the missed hits, unnecessary damage, sub-optimal strats, and button mashing are just too much. Hell, they use the faster bomb-dropping strat on the second two bosses in the Computer Virus battle yet used bomb throwing for the rest of the battles (excluding that small part of Fatty Whale). There are seemed to be instances where it seemed like the runner was unfamiliar with the boss patterns. Plus combined with the fact that the previous verifier has a better time for this Helper to Hero is going to have me reject this one as well.
Plasma Wisp
A/V is fine, no cheating. In-game time is 7:18:00. Again, there are missed hits and unnecessary damage being taken. It also seemed like the runner did not charge Plasma Wisp's attacks at times when they were able to. Even with some good strats being used, there was a lot of really bad fights in this. I'm going to give this one a reject.
The Arena
A/V is fine (didn't notice any lag), no cheating. In-game time is 6:03:87 Again, there are missed hits and unnecessary damage being taken. Plus sub-optimal strats. Giving this one a reject as well.
The True Arena
A/V is fine, no cheating. In-game time is 4:30:07. Again, with the missed hits and unnecessary damage taken. Some of those being very costly mistakes. And if the previous verifier can get a better time, then I'm going to give this one a reject as well.
Quote:
I have more detailed personal notes for theses runs if you would like I can post them.
-Bonkers
No Cheats were detected.
AV Quality is good.
-End Time-4:11.02
-Total Speculative lost time-30.00
Final Thoughts and evaluation
Edit*
After reviewing the Video I have seen what Kirbymastah was talking about the time loss in this run is much more
significant then I originally thought, this is a good PB it is, not a SDA run.
I have to say that I would
Reject it.
-Birdon
No Cheats were detected.
AV Quality is good.
-End Time-7:02.47
-Total Speculative lost time-39.50
Final Thoughts and evaluation
for as wonky as birdon controls losing about 40 seconds to taking hits and missing the boss's, it's to imprecise.
I would have to say I would
REJECT it.
-Poppy Bro. Jr
No Cheats were detected.
AV Quality is good.
-End Time-8:19.17
-Total Speculative lost time-72.00
Final Thoughts and evaluation
Mashing bomb throws rather then timing them for the I-Frames, taking unnecessary hits,
and to top it off not using dropped bombs which do more damage.
I would have to say I would
REJECT it.
-Plasma Whisp
No Cheats were detected
AV Quality is good.
-End Time-7:18.00
-Total Speculative lost time-56.00
Final Thoughts and evaluation
This run was ok but given that his third best was 12 minutes it feels to few attempts were made. This time can be greatly improved in many areas, by learning boss patterns and getting used to plasmas charge and using the basic shot/arrow when needed.
I would have to say I would
REJECT it.
-Arena Mode
No Cheats were detected
AV Quality is good.
-End TIme-6:03.87
-Total Speculative lost time-56.00
Final Thoughts and evaluation
A good run, most of the time was lost in Kracko, Main Cannon #2, Galatic nova nucleus, but with those massive time losses this run is too easily improved.
I would have to say I would
REJECT it.
-True Arena Mode
No Cheats were detected
Av Quality is good.
-End Time-4:30.07
-Total Speculative lost time-38.00
Final Thoughts and Evaluation
Good run, but its time loss to LoLoLo&LaLaLa, & Masked DeDeDe is too much, with a net time loss (for the full run) of over 30 seconds it is to much.
I would have to say I would
REJECT it.
Overall Thoughts
I would have to REJECT all these runs for major time loss.
These runs are good for PB's but not SDA Material, especially with the outdated strat's.
I would hope to see another submission from this runner with the current strat's as
I see the skill for the execution of them.
-Bonkers
No Cheats were detected.
AV Quality is good.
-End Time-4:11.02
-Total Speculative lost time-30.00
Final Thoughts and evaluation
Edit*
After reviewing the Video I have seen what Kirbymastah was talking about the time loss in this run is much more
significant then I originally thought, this is a good PB it is, not a SDA run.
I have to say that I would
Reject it.
-Birdon
No Cheats were detected.
AV Quality is good.
-End Time-7:02.47
-Total Speculative lost time-39.50
Final Thoughts and evaluation
for as wonky as birdon controls losing about 40 seconds to taking hits and missing the boss's, it's to imprecise.
I would have to say I would
REJECT it.
-Poppy Bro. Jr
No Cheats were detected.
AV Quality is good.
-End Time-8:19.17
-Total Speculative lost time-72.00
Final Thoughts and evaluation
Mashing bomb throws rather then timing them for the I-Frames, taking unnecessary hits,
and to top it off not using dropped bombs which do more damage.
I would have to say I would
REJECT it.
-Plasma Whisp
No Cheats were detected
AV Quality is good.
-End Time-7:18.00
-Total Speculative lost time-56.00
Final Thoughts and evaluation
This run was ok but given that his third best was 12 minutes it feels to few attempts were made. This time can be greatly improved in many areas, by learning boss patterns and getting used to plasmas charge and using the basic shot/arrow when needed.
I would have to say I would
REJECT it.
-Arena Mode
No Cheats were detected
AV Quality is good.
-End TIme-6:03.87
-Total Speculative lost time-56.00
Final Thoughts and evaluation
A good run, most of the time was lost in Kracko, Main Cannon #2, Galatic nova nucleus, but with those massive time losses this run is too easily improved.
I would have to say I would
REJECT it.
-True Arena Mode
No Cheats were detected
Av Quality is good.
-End Time-4:30.07
-Total Speculative lost time-38.00
Final Thoughts and Evaluation
Good run, but its time loss to LoLoLo&LaLaLa, & Masked DeDeDe is too much, with a net time loss (for the full run) of over 30 seconds it is to much.
I would have to say I would
REJECT it.
Overall Thoughts
I would have to REJECT all these runs for major time loss.
These runs are good for PB's but not SDA Material, especially with the outdated strat's.
I would hope to see another submission from this runner with the current strat's as
I see the skill for the execution of them.
Quote:
A/V didn't seem to be an issue.
Bonkers
I have a time 3 seconds faster than this and haven't worked on this mode since the first month the game was out. This run is at least 30 seconds behind the best known time and has several suboptimal strategies, so even though it is the best H2H run execution wise in this batch, it's an easy reject.
Birdon
Execution was much sloppier than Bonkers and this is also at least 30 seconds behind the known record for the character so this has no chance.
Poppy Bro. Jr
While I'm not extremely familiar with optimal strats for this character, I checked my times for H2H on my cart and this character was faster than the submitted run. I'm guessing that the down B attack that drops quick exploding bombs was used a lot more, and I imagine you could cut at least 30 seconds, if not far more, by using that instead of chucking them. The drops are much faster than the normal flight of the bomb and will end up getting damage in more often. This could be a tricky mechanic to optimize around every single boss, but it's something you need to do in a run so short.
Plasma Whisp
Using plasma properly in either version of KSS is very tech heavy and takes quite a bit of work to get fast at. The runner clearly didn't put in the time to get a grasp on the character very well, because once again the submission is slower than my casual time from when the game came out. If you're going to attempt this character in H2H, you're going to need to work on getting a lot more plasma shots off in a short amount of time. General execution seemed a bit sloppy anyway.
Arena Mode
This sorta seems like maybe the runner watched 0xwas doing KSS arena as a reference and then went for the run on DS. The problem is that powerup tiers are completely different on DS, so plasma ends up being bad here. The execution isn't as sloppy as some of the H2H runs, but the strats aren't good enough to even have a chance at a competitive time.
True Arena Mode
Once again, my 4+ year old time is better in this mode and I didn't work on optimizations too much. Easy reject.
This runner really needs to talk to anonwu and kirbymastah about speed strats for this game if he wants to ever be serious about running it. Use the forums at the very least. Submitting runs that are getting crushed by casual times from years ago just shows that not enough research was done for these runs in the first place and the expectations weren't high enough.
Universal reject.
Bonkers
I have a time 3 seconds faster than this and haven't worked on this mode since the first month the game was out. This run is at least 30 seconds behind the best known time and has several suboptimal strategies, so even though it is the best H2H run execution wise in this batch, it's an easy reject.
Birdon
Execution was much sloppier than Bonkers and this is also at least 30 seconds behind the known record for the character so this has no chance.
Poppy Bro. Jr
While I'm not extremely familiar with optimal strats for this character, I checked my times for H2H on my cart and this character was faster than the submitted run. I'm guessing that the down B attack that drops quick exploding bombs was used a lot more, and I imagine you could cut at least 30 seconds, if not far more, by using that instead of chucking them. The drops are much faster than the normal flight of the bomb and will end up getting damage in more often. This could be a tricky mechanic to optimize around every single boss, but it's something you need to do in a run so short.
Plasma Whisp
Using plasma properly in either version of KSS is very tech heavy and takes quite a bit of work to get fast at. The runner clearly didn't put in the time to get a grasp on the character very well, because once again the submission is slower than my casual time from when the game came out. If you're going to attempt this character in H2H, you're going to need to work on getting a lot more plasma shots off in a short amount of time. General execution seemed a bit sloppy anyway.
Arena Mode
This sorta seems like maybe the runner watched 0xwas doing KSS arena as a reference and then went for the run on DS. The problem is that powerup tiers are completely different on DS, so plasma ends up being bad here. The execution isn't as sloppy as some of the H2H runs, but the strats aren't good enough to even have a chance at a competitive time.
True Arena Mode
Once again, my 4+ year old time is better in this mode and I didn't work on optimizations too much. Easy reject.
This runner really needs to talk to anonwu and kirbymastah about speed strats for this game if he wants to ever be serious about running it. Use the forums at the very least. Submitting runs that are getting crushed by casual times from years ago just shows that not enough research was done for these runs in the first place and the expectations weren't high enough.
Universal reject.
Decision: Reject all
Reason: None of these runs show the level of planning or execution that we expect.
This run will be available for a month. After that these links will no longer work.
http://queue.speeddemosarchive.com/queue/verificationfiles/487
http://queue.speeddemosarchive.com/queue/verificationfiles/488
http://queue.speeddemosarchive.com/queue/verificationfiles/494
http://queue.speeddemosarchive.com/queue/verificationfiles/495
http://queue.speeddemosarchive.com/queue/verificationfiles/489
http://queue.speeddemosarchive.com/queue/verificationfiles/493
Thread title:
